


The Order of Our Going

by the_rck



Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Genre: Backstory, Canonical death in childbirth, Canonical parental adultery, Character Study, Childhood, Gen, Half-Siblings, Hints of murder, Politics, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 04:44:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13092669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Eric didn't start out hating Corwin.





	The Order of Our Going

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Witter Bynner's poem, “At the Last.”
> 
> Beta read by Gonqueasel.

Eric didn’t start out hating Corwin, but he understood, from the moment Corwin arrived, that his own safety and stability had ended because Corwin had been born after their parents married. Years and years after.

Eric was old enough to remember Osric and Finndo, but he’d been young enough not to register much beyond that they didn’t like him or his mother and that they were large and scary. He’d thought he’d understood his mother’s fierce satisfaction when they died.

He’d thought.

Benedict explained the idea of legitimacy and illegitimacy to Eric when he was ten and then again when he was twelve. Eric didn’t understand why until he was fourteen. His parents announced that his mother was pregnant, and Benedict told him to hope for a sister. Eric finally understood that, if he had a younger brother who was legitimate, he would become Benedict.

Except not because Benedict was better than Eric was at everything. He’d had a head start of years, decades even. Eric might end up being Osric or Finndo.

At least Eric knew that Benedict wanted him to survive.

Then his mother apologized to him and tried to explain everything Benedict had long ago told him. She added, “I wasn’t going to risk displacing you.” She put a hand on her lower back as if it ached, and she sighed. “Your father… If he loses interest before you’re grown, it would be worse.”

He’d understood that part, too. If his mother was put aside and annulled as Cymnea had been, Eric would be less than Benedict because Benedict had been a prince, was still called a prince by those who dealt with him, those who knew that he could kill them for not and that Oberon wouldn’t care.

Benedict had been a man. Benedict had been a general. Benedict had walked the Pattern. Benedict was still useful to their father. Benedict could leave if he wanted to. If he needed to.

Eric had none of that. He might, some day, given the opportunity. That he worked hard for all of it, after, had nothing at all to do with Corwin as Corwin. If Corwin thought otherwise, well, Corwin hadn’t yet had reason to get over being a fool.

When their mother died giving birth to Deirdre, Eric mourned, but he wasn’t surprised. Their father’s attention had wandered, and Oberon wasn’t going to risk another Cymnea, another Osric, another Finndo.

Oberon didn’t even see that Benedict might still be a threat, but he’d noticed that Eric might.

And Corwin, spoiled and arrogant as he was, would never understand that, by not telling him, Eric had saved his life.


End file.
